It’s been a while since I put a project on this blog but over the past few months I have acquired a few keyboards to fix.
My first keyboard was a Roland E-30 (looooooong time ago). I’ve gotten a little sentimental and therefore I have bought a Roland E-70. A year after I got the E-30 the famous E-70 came out. This was the top of the line arranger keyboard from Roland at that time. I remember looking at it in the music store. Cost around 2000 euro’s I think so that wasn’t gonna happen back then. I picked one up for 25 euro’s that needs 2 new keys and a good clean. The keys are a bit yellow so I might try to retrobright them back to white while I’m at it. It came with 11 Music Style Cards which contain well.. extra music styles 🙂 (including a Beatles card and a card containing the Lambada, cool :-p)
I’ve played it and it’s really enjoyable. A real trip down memory lane.
I’m actually about to pickup a smashed E-86 today. I’ve never had a E-86 before (I’ve had 2 E-96’s over the past few years though..) This one needs about 10 new keys. I also want to replace the floppy drive with a USB floppy emulator thing. Never done that so that will be a nice project.
To fix the E-70 and the E-86 I bought a donor E-56. The E-56, E-70 and E-86 share the same keys. The E-56 was only 15 euro’s and has 1 broken key. Still a bit of a shame to remove the keys from that one to fix the other 2 but a hell of a lot cheaper than buying new or used keys (5-10 euro’s each) from somewhere. If you need E-56 parts let me know 🙂
Other projects:
Roland D-10. Needs a new key and some TLC.
Roland JV-30. Few keys don’t work.
Roland D-70. Already fixed the keybed issues but I want to install a new display.
Roland JD-800. Yeahhh 🙂 My second JD-800. Recently bought this from the first owner. It’s absolutely mint but has been in storage for 20 years and now some keys are stuck and some other keys don’t work. Came with ALL 8 ORIGINAL CARD SETS! (yes, including the Strings Ensemble cards!)
Roland Rhodes 760. A loose key and some keys don’t work. Funny thing. Basically a watered down U-20 with 76 keys. Lacks a few functions and a RAM slot but has 2 ROM slots for the SN-U110-xx cards.
I will try and put these projects on this site when I get around to fixing them!
Synths and Keyboards 
Hi. I am finding your blog very informative for my D70 project. I got it for short money (D70 and a U220 for $100). Got all keys firing. Still dealing with other challenges.
Has display issue (LCD shows solid black on power up)
A handful of broken keys (they got glued together from failed weight glue)
Who knows what else I’ll find once I get deeper in after display replacement.
U220 needs a factory reset (D70 probably does, too). Im stymied on it, but will keep at it. To your knowledge is there an equivalent for MIDIox for Mac? I have the sysex file, but can’t get it out to the unit.
Thanks,
Rick
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Hi Rick, i don’t if there is an alternatieve for midi-ox in a Mac but there probably is. What kind of midi cable are you using? If it’s a cheap Chinese gray/silver one with a music note printed on it toss it and buy a Roland cable. Regards, Jorick
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